“And the best part? There’s food! Tons and tons of food! I mean, look at the people! Look how much they eat! Have you ever tried bread crumbs? You HAVE to try bread crumbs. Now, there’s a meal that’ll stick to your birdcage. But we’d better get in there fast. I think I just heard thunder!” Nuts looked up at the sky. It was cloudless.
“That was my stomach,” Slingshot said proudly.
“Impressive. Okay, stay right behind me. I know a way to get inside.”
“But it looks completely open!” Speed Bump said. “Why can’t we just fly through the main entrance?”
“Oh, no no no no no,” Nuts said. The feathers on his face quivered. “NEVER try to fly right in. It LOOKS open, but it’s a trick. An evil trick! Those are called windows. Just because you can SEE through them doesn’t mean you can GET through them. Believe me—I’ve made that mistake too many times!”
Speed Bump and Slingshot followed Nuts down to the front of the mall and landed on top of a trash can.
“This big window is really a door. Now we wait for people to open it so we can fly through. Not just one person, though—that doesn’t give you enough time.” Nuts shuddered at a memory. “When a bunch of people go in together, we go in with them, straight and fast, right over their heads.”
As soon as they were inside, Speed Bump let go of Slingshot’s tail feathers, and they flew to the top of a statue in the center of the mall.
Nuts gestured grandly with his wing.
“Take a gander around you, boys. More goodies than you could ever need!”
“This place is crazy!” said Speed Bump.
“Where do we even begin our scavenger hunt?” asked Slingshot.
“Good question, good question,” said Nuts. “I see people looking at that board a lot. Maybe it will help.”
They stared and stared at the directory.
“Nope.”
“I got nothin’.”
“Well, let’s just start at the top of that moving stairs contraption.”
Then they ate and ate and ate until they could barely fly to the ceiling rafters.
But they were too late.